Garden & Lawn Pest Control : How to Control Bagworms

Hi this is Yolanda from Vanveen bulbs dot
com. And in this segment we are going to learn all about how to control bagworms. Now bagworms
are generally found east of the Rocky Mountain, so they are not a big problem in the west
coast. Luckily. But they have become a problem on the east coast. Now what happens is there’s
some moths that lay their eggs in these bags. They look just like a silken bag. And they
hang from pine trees. And so when you look at them they look just like little bags hanging
from a tree. And you are wondering what is that. Well inside those bags there’s thousands
of little eggs. And so when they hatch they make these little larvae that get all over
our trees and eat all the needles and into the wood and it will do a lot of damage to
your trees. So there’s a few ways that you can control them. So the first thing that
you should do is always rake up all of your pine cones in your leaves under the trees.
And when it looks like a pine cone in the tree it might actually be a bag worm because
they look just like a pine cone. So whenever you find them in the fall pull them down and
get rid of them physically. That’s the first thing that you should do. So in early spring,
the caterpillar hatch out of the bags. So it is at that time that you can try to control
them chemically. So there’s a spray that you can use and it’s called the Bacillus thuringiensis
and it’s an organic control for caterpillars and you spray the whole tree down in early
spring. You can’t really kill the larvae until they’ve hatched so you want to make sure and
spray them as soon as they come out of their little bags. And BT as it’s also known is
safe to animals but it also kills all types of caterpillars so it will kill every type
of butterfly in your yard. So only use it as a last resort. A preventative measure that
a lot of people have been using is actually spraying down the trees with some oil. Whether
it be vegetable oil or soybean oil it actually protects the trees because of the little bagworms
cannot live with the oil. It breaks down their little coverings. So there’s lots of easy
ways and lots of information on the internet.